By
Andreas Schadschneider, Universitaet zu Koeln, Institut fuer Theoretische Physik, Germany
Debashish Chowdhury, Indian Institute of Technology, Department of Physics, Kanpur, India
Katsuhiro Nishinari, University of Tokyo, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Japan
Description
The first part of the book provides a pedagogical introduction to the physics of complex systems driven far from equilibrium. In this
part we discuss the basic concepts and theoretical techniques which are commonly used to study classical stochastic transport in systems
of interacting driven particles. The analytical techniques include mean-field theories, matrix product ansatz, renormalization group,
etc. and the numerical methods are mostly based on computer simulations. In the second part of the book these concepts and techniques
are applied not only to vehicular traffic but also to transport and traffic-like phenomena in living systems ranging from collective
movements of social insects (for example, ants) on trails to intracellular molecular motor transport. These demonstrate the conceptual
unity of the fundamental principles underlying the apparent diversity of the systems and the utility of the theoretical toolbox of non-equilibrium
statistical mechanics in interdisciplinary research far beyond the traditional disciplinary boundaries of physics.
Audience:
This book is suitable for theoretical physicists (particularly statistical physicists), graduate students, civil engineer (particularly
traffic engineers) and biological physicists (particularly in molecular cell biology and social insects).
